deploy-django-azure.md

Deploy Django app to Azure App Service

Run a cronjob in Azure App Service (Linux)

SSH into the container and copy the current startup script by typing the following:

$ cp /opt/startup/startup.sh /home

Edit the startup.sh under /home/startup.sh and add your changes to the top of the file after #!/bin/sh. In the sample below, I'll be installing cron to run a cronjob.

# Installing cron
apt-get update -qq && apt-get install cron -yqq
service cron start
mkdir /home/BackupLogs
(crontab -l 2>/dev/null; echo "*/5 * * * * cp /home/LogFiles/*.log /home/BackupLogs")|crontab

Save the file.

In the Azure Portal configurations, add /home/startup.sh as the Startup Command and restart the site.

Note, there are two pitfalls to this approach:

• The script must be executable, so either install w/ unix and chmod 755 start.sh or use a git command (see SO).
• The 3pp (here crontab) is installed on every startup, thus you depend on external servers/repositories when starting the webapp.

References for this section:

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/57654279/how-to-run-cronjobs-on-an-azure-linux-hosted-webapp
• https://azureossd.github.io/2020/01/23/custom-startup-for-nodejs-python/index.html

References

• Deploying a Django App to Azure App Service
• Deploy a Python (Django or Flask) web app with PostgreSQL in Azure